


Right Now's All We Got

by gaygreekgladiator (ama)



Category: Spartacus Series (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1920s, Alternate Universe - Burlesque Club, Developing Relationship, Drinking, Established Relationship, F/F, F/M, Female Friendship, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Multi, POV Multiple, Romance, Sexual Harassment, Timeline Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-19
Updated: 2013-09-19
Packaged: 2017-12-27 02:14:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/973083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ama/pseuds/gaygreekgladiator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One night at the Praxagora Club. Kore deals with the unpleasant reappearance of an old nuisance, Mira and Chadara deal with relationship and personal issues, Naevia is happy, and Laeta keeps the whole thing from falling apart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Right Now's All We Got

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written in response to chrysamthemumskies' wonderful prompt, [which](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/spartacusrbbmod/65201913/8443/8443_600.jpg) [you](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/spartacusrbbmod/65201913/8579/8579_600.jpg) [should](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/spartacusrbbmod/65201913/9102/9102_600.jpg) [all](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/spartacusrbbmod/65201913/9328/9328_original.jpg) [look](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/spartacusrbbmod/65201913/8856/8856_600.jpg) [at](http://24.media.tumblr.com/f2517082c33158f443f0a4071d368b2e/tumblr_mpp6tjEmrP1qecqaao1_1280.jpg) because gorgeous. Much thanks to Rivlee for betaing!

**Kore**

_8:29_

His fingers wrap tightly around her wrist, and her foot hits his shin with a solid crack. Tiberius stumbles back but Kore strikes swiftly, her fingernails clawing his face. Red streaks blossom against his skin.

Her own cheeks are deathly pale, she knows, and she draws her feathered boa tighter around her as if he were a cold breeze and not a young, arrogant man with violence in his eyes. The club seems to have gone completely silent, except for the growl that escapes his bared teeth. At the same moment, warm fingers wrap protectively around her arm, and a familiar shadow materializes out of the crowd.

Barca storms up behind Tiberius and slaps a hand on his shoulder. Seeing him, Kore turns and finds Naevia standing there with her lips pressed so tight that they look pale beneath her makeup. Her eyes are fixed on Tiberius, and Kore thinks _of course_. Naevia hates him as much as she does; he’s the one who lost Crixus his job. Naevia sees that she’s looking, and she dips her head down.

“You all right?” she murmurs softly.

Kore looks back at Tiberius. She can no longer see him; Barca is too tall, too broad, and he keeps insistently shoving Tiberius backward, closer to the exit. The only evidence of his presence is his outraged shouts about his father’s influence. Kore can picture the look of vicious disdain on Barca’s face, and she smiles weakly.

“I’m fine,” she says to Naevia, who squeezes her arm sympathetically and then moves away to speak to Castus—no doubt trying to transition the show as smoothly as possible. No easy task, when a dancer has been accosted in the middle of a number.

Before Naevia has even taken a full step, she is replaced by two other girls who surround Kore like an honor guard. Saxa is swearing oaths in rough, angry German, and they escort her protectively towards the wings. There, Kore freezes. Laeta is walking rapidly towards her, her storm-grey eyes roiling with fury and worry.

“Kore, I’m—”

“It’s all right.”

“Like hell it is. Come on; let’s talk.”

She waves the two other girls away, and guides Kore to a more private room in the back.

 

_9:39_

It has been more than an hour since Tiberius was evicted from the club. Most of the other girls seem to have forgotten about him, or at least decided that he presents no further threat tonight. But he haunts the back of Kore’s mind, the way he always has. Every few minutes, the light feathers of her costume brush against her arms and she shudders, remembering his foul touch.

And worse—she keeps glancing at the door, expecting the appearance of his father.

Kore ducks backstage and into one of the changing rooms, which is a whirl of women in various states of dishabille, and strips methodically out of her singing costume for one that is a bit more salacious. With Tiberius on her mind, she would appreciate the armor of more clothes, but she is dancing next. Hopefully, the exertion will banish troubling thoughts from her mind.

When she was working at Crassus’s club, she had never spared a thought for how short, or sheer, or risqué her costumes were, she thinks ruefully. But Crassus had a way about him… he had earnestly urged her to reject anything that did not suit her, and the thought of doing so had only made her more determined to wear them. She had ignored the gaze of any man but him, and delighted in the way his eyes traced her body. If she had blushed, it had not been in shame.

“Hey, honey,” Mira says, appearing breathlessly from stage. “Belesa’s already in the wings. C’mon—what’s eating you?” she asks, suddenly concerned. Kore smiles thinly.

“I’m all right, honest.”

“If it’s that two-bit, good-for-nothing rich boy, put him right out of your mind,” Mira says hotly. “I’ll peg him with a beer bottle, you know I will.”

Kore laughs as the other woman wraps a protective arm around her shoulders and steers her into the wings. She’s seen Mira hit a man in the head with a shot glass from twenty feet, and she doesn’t doubt that the threat is legitimate.

That’s something different from Crassus’s place, too. There, she had been the headliner and he had made sure that she knew it. The other girls might’ve resented her for it, or they might’ve admired her—Kore really doesn’t know. She’d spoken to them at rehearsals, mostly. Between shows, she had rested and dressed in a private room, or been whisked away to visit with Crassus. Here, there are only two dressing rooms for sixteen female performers, and one for the male comedians and sketch actors.

As a result, Kore is much friendlier with the other dancers, and happier. She isn’t the lead performer, but she knows that Naevia is a better singer and Saxa a better dancer, and she loves them like sisters, so it doesn’t seem to matter.

She and Mira quietly approach the stage, where Belesa is already waiting, watching the performance. Saxa and Chadara are out there, as well as a handful of girls that Kore doesn’t know as well. It’s a wonderful dance, lively and loud. The one she is about to do with her companions is less ostentatious; their dark looks lend themselves better to slow, sultry numbers. Kore and Mira are dressed in tight, short black dresses, deceptively simple and surprisingly elegant, whereas Belesa’s outfit is complex and made to be taken apart, bit by bit. They take turns singing lead, while Belesa does most of the dancing. It’s a marvelous show, popular with crowds. They’ve done it a number of times.

Kore’s eyes drift off the stage and rest on Laeta, who stands directly across from her. It’s hard to read her expression in the dim light filtered through the thick curtains, but Kore thinks her face is warm with approval—as it often is.

Laeta is… special. Different from Crassus, of course, but Kore thinks different from most club owners, too. She was married once, but when her husband died she did not retreat into mourning, or stay with family, or find a nice job as a womanly secretary. She promoted herself from her husband’s secretary to his replacement.

Under her guidance, the girls working the chorus line are happy and well-protected; security is sublime, the treatment of customers is as well as can be hoped, the performances are raunchy but not degrading. Laeta talks to them, and protects them, and wants them to be friendly with her and each other. She wears pinstriped suits like a man, with high-heeled boots and her long red hair falling in loose curls down her back.

When Kore sees her, she feels—not calm, but _revitalized_. She likes her slow crooning songs, and then she sees Laeta in the wings with a smile on her face and her head tilted just so, and on a whim Kore adds a new note to a song that wasn’t there before. Something bolder, more exciting. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, but she knows that every time she tries something new, Laeta hears it, and seeks her out afterwards to give gentle encouragement or advice. She rests a hand on Kore’s back and leans her head close to be heard over the bustle of the club, close enough for Kore to be pleasantly intoxicated by her soft lavender perfume, and her heart swells with eagerness for something she cannot name.

Kore tears her gaze away when she feels the blush on her cheeks. She refuses to acknowledge it for what it is, even though she can’t help but reproach herself. Didn’t she learn her lesson with Crassus? Is she going to make the same fool mistake again? _Not the same_ , a voice whispers. _She’s kind and single_.

And a woman, no matter how well she might wear a suit.

Her eyes slide to the women beside her, and those still on the stage. There’s no shortage of women who love women at this club—it’s a kind of open secret. There are a few men in the club, as customers and employees, who don’t really come just to see girls take their clothes off, and a few women who _do_ , for all that they only look directly at the stage when the comics are on. But that doesn’t mean that Kore feels that way, does it? Hell, those kind of thoughts wander through everyone’s mind now and again, especially when so many women are thrown together in this kind of way. Some take it seriously, some don’t. There’s no way to tell, really…

No way to be sure, at least.

 

_10:46_

The politics at Praxagora are complex. Some girls gravitate more naturally to the spotlight, but it’s something that must be shared. Feelings are hurt and insults are traded sometimes. That’s just how the world works. But no one—flat _no one_ —objects to giving Naevia her solos.  She’s more than earned them, and she is a queen onstage.

She has just started her first song when Kore slips through the crowd and quietly takes a seat at Castus’s piano bench. He greets her with a friendly bump against her shoulder and doesn’t miss a beat at the instrument. He never does. Castus is one of two pianists they have, and Kore has hardly ever heard him flub his music. He isn’t rude or arrogant like the musicians at Crassus’s club, either. He’s sweet and flirty and always good with a joke.

Kore needs to sit with him for a while, with his warm steady presence beside her, the sight of his hands skating over the ivory keys, the scent of his cologne lingering faintly in the air, and the rich, husky cadence of Naevia’s voice falling over them. Castus gives her a crooked smile and plays tirelessly.

Towards the end of Naevia’s set, Belesa materializes on his other side, giggling, and joins in the raucous applause as Naevia finishes. Castus takes advantage of the noise to lean down and say “Word is you had a bit of a tussle earlier,” into Kore’s ear.

“Word is you kicked him right where he deserves,” Belesa counters with a smirk.

“I wish,” Kore says with a slight smile. “It’s fine,” she says to Castus. He’s never been one to fuss, and he kisses her cheek and accepts it.

“Get me a drink, will you? I’m drying out, here.”

“No,” she says, just to see the look on his face. “You drink too much.”

“No such thing,” Belesa declares. She stands and lets her hand trail over his shoulders as she heads toward the bar. “ _I’ll_ get the two of us drinks. _You_ moon over Laeta some more.”

Castus laughs, but when he sees the flush on Kore’s cheeks, his chuckles turn into silent amusement. He raises an eyebrow. She meets his gaze boldly.

“Kore dear, you’re breaking my heart.”

She tosses her hair with a silent smile and looks towards the stage.

 

_1:24_

“Come in.”

Kore pushes the door open and smiles tentatively at Laeta, who smiles back. She looks exhausted, but she immediately leans back in her chair and gestures for Kore to sit. Kore steps in, but keeps her hand on the door.

“If you want to leave, we can talk tomorrow,” she offers. “Lord knows you could use a break.”

“And talking with you will give me one,” Laeta says cheerfully. “What is it? Crassus hasn’t—”

Her smile fades for a moment, turning stern, and Kore shakes her head quickly.

“No, nothing like that.” A grin flits across her face. “I heard he walked into your office looking smug and out looking like an angry bull. Good for you.”

Laeta flashes a satisfied smirk. Everyone knows she loves taking down the men who think they’re in charge of the neighborhood. Cops, gangsters, politicians. She digs her claws in and doesn’t let go. The girls love her for it.

“No sweat; I’ve been wanting to bleed him a little for a long time. So what did you want to talk about?”

Kore hesitates. Now that she’s here, her carefully-worded speech seems… inadequate. Awkward. Hell, she’s never done this before, with _anyone_ , let alone another woman. She doesn’t know how to come right out and say it—she’s best at sitting pretty and waiting. But she looks in Laeta’s smiling face and she doesn’t want to do that. Because Laeta is interested in her, and asks for her opinions, and thinks she’s strong, and trusts her. She wants to have that kind of faith in herself. The kind of faith she had before Crassus and Tiberius and all the world went to hell.

She takes a deep breath and wills her hand not to shake as she walks around Laeta’s desk. Laeta stands up automatically, pushing her chair back with a low grating sound against the floor, and she looks down at it as if she’s embarrassed, though Kore can’t imagine why.

Kore sits on the edge of the desk and reaches out—her hands are steady—to brush one of Laeta’s untamable curls from her face. Her fingers brush lightly against Laeta’s pale skin and she shivers, and rests them more solidly against her cheek. There’s no air in the room, no way out, and she pulls Laeta’s face close to hers.

Laeta’s hand rests featherlight on her shoulder as their lips touch, and Kore can’t take it anymore, she throws her arms around Laeta’s neck and holds on tight, because damn it she’s tired of being careful. The kiss breaks with a gasp, and she is so fucking relieved to see the smile on Laeta’s face. It could light up the stage.

“All right?” Kore asks, breathlessly.

“Perfect.”

 

**Chadara**

_9:12_

She’s going to miss her cue. Chadara swears violently at herself as she tries to fix her makeup, but it’s no use—hurrying only makes her hands less steady. Luckily, Naevia comes to her rescue. She swoops in, trailing gauzy shawls, and plucks the mascara brush from Chadara’s fingers.

“Here, doll, let me.”

“Thanks a bunch,” Chadara sighs, her eyelids falling lightly closed. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me—I’m going all to pieces! Thought I wasn’t supposed to be on for another fifteen minutes, and then Saxa came over to yell at me and I spilled my drink.”

Naevia clucks sympathetically. They sit in companionable silence for a moment as she finishes, and then Chadara proceeded to fix her lipstick.

“Speaking of,” Naevia says with an edge of worry in her voice. “How are you and Mira doing?”

Chadara doesn’t answer at first; the act of perfecting her lipstick is her excuse.

“Good,” she says finally.

“You haven’t argued or anything lately, have you?”

It’s none of her damn business, and if Mira’s said something, they’re going to have a _real_ fight later, Chadara fumes.

“No,” she lies lightly. “Why?”

“She’s been awful quiet tonight, that’s all. And you’re a bit off tonight. It’s nothing, sweet,” Naevia says, waving it away. She stands and squeezes Chadara’s shoulder, dropping a kiss to her cheek. “Just wanted to make sure you’re all right.”

“We’re fine,” Chadara says, watching her lips form the words in the mirror.

_11:34_

The problem, she thinks as she lazily slips the strap of her dress off her shoulder, is that Mira is so damned sure of herself.

A scant three years ago, Mira was on this same stage, slithering out of her dress and fluttering her eyelashes at the whooping men in her audience. She had mooned over Spartacus and slept with her fair share of men for money and prestige, and made a general fool of herself. Then Laeta had arrived and things changed. Girls don’t go home with the audience anymore—or if they do, they do it on the sly so no one, dancer or observer, gets twisted ideas of what the dancers are obliged to do.

They still wear skimpy clothes and kick their legs up high, and the comics tell raunchy jokes, but it’s been made clear that girls who want to stay mostly covered can. Mira does. Chadara doesn’t.

She snaps her garter and winks at the audience with a simpering smile. The resulting howl has her seeing dollar signs in her head, which makes her grin wider. Hell, that’s what they’re here for, isn’t it? Mira _knows_ that. If Chadara could make more money sitting behind a desk with a hemline down to her ankles, she would—and get just as many pinches and leers, no doubt.

Or… maybe she wouldn’t. She _likes_ doing this. Being onstage, feeling beautiful, getting attention. She’s good at it. And she would rather do her flirting here, where (most) everyone knows that it’s an act, than out in the real world where things get messy. Mira should be able to _see_ that, she thinks, and she has to work quickly to hide the irritation from showing on her face.

They’ve been together for more than a year, and Chadara has _never_ —well. Once. But they’ve talked about that, and it was in the very beginning, and since _then_ there hasn’t been anyone. It was a miscommunication, and now they’re clear.

And Chadara doesn’t like being angry at Mira, but she doesn’t like seeing that derisive look on her face, either, and she’s sure as hell not going to apologize. Or stop shaking her ass just because it makes Mira uncomfortable. She tosses her hair and strikes a pose, and hopes that Mira is watching from the wings.

 

_11:45_

Her face is still flushed from the exertion of the stage when Kore approaches her, uncertainty in her steps. Chadara flashes a smile; she’s not close with Kore, but she knows it’s been a rough night.

“Hey,” Kore says. “Do you mind if—I just had a little question.”

“Shoot,” Chadara says breezily, tossing her hair over her shoulder. They go into the dressing room, which is emptying as girls stream out to do the big group number that’s coming up next. She perches on the delicate chairs as Kore finds her words.

“How did you… fall in love?”

There is an embarrassed grin on her face and shifts her weight as though her high heels are making her uncomfortable—which never happens to girls here. They can handle a few hours’ worth of pain. But this situation… yeah, it’s uncomfortable. She _should_ feel embarrassed. Kore’s a grown woman and she should know how things like this work. What you say and don’t say.

Chadara is always more apt to be too friendly rather than too distant, but it’s been a rough few days and there is chilliness in her voice when she says, “The same way most folk do, I suppose.”

Kore’s lips press together to hide her disappointment. She shrugs one white, elegantly bared shoulder and turns to the mirror.

“It’s something I’ve never been very good at,” she admits. She is draped in dark purple fabrics that make her look regal, certainly, but also… small. And haggard, like a widow. Chadara thinks of Tiberius, and Crassus, and Laeta and the stories some girls tell that make Kore flush and turn aside.

Pity is not an emotion that Chadara subscribes to, but suddenly she regrets her rash words.

“Perhaps it is different," she admits. "Just in the way—it takes more thought, you know? Whenever I liked a man, it was like that." She snaps her fingers. "With a woman… for a while I would think I wanted to be friends, and when it was stronger than that I thought ‘oh I admire her, I wish I could be more like her’…"

She trails off for a moment and then shakes her head. Her curls bounce around the edge of her vision, smelling like hairspray and the cheap perfume Mira bought her for her birthday. Chadara likes cheap perfume; she can wear as much as she likes, and after a few hours in the heat and close quarters of the dance hall, it doesn’t matter anyway. She smells of sweat and everyone else’s sprays and soaps, and she loves it.

Mira uses jasmine scent, good stuff, and applies it carefully so that it lasts. Chadara teases her for it.

"But you can’t do that," she tells Kore abruptly. "You can’t change to be like other women, even if they’re—like you in some ways—because the whole world wants you to be like Another Woman, a Perfect Woman, all the time, and you do it once then you’ll never stop. It just gets easier and easier. So—so that’s that. You have to decide whether it’s like, or admiration, or love, and then decide if you’re bold enough to do something about it. And enough to stick with it.

“Once you do that, you’re golden. You’re happy, and not trying to hide it from yourself, and the two of you are stronger together because you’re strong apart. It’s…” She swallows and looks at her hands. “It’s a really nice feeling.”

Kore looks thoughtful, and then a smile creeps over her face. Suddenly she bends down and kisses Chadara on the cheek.

“Thanks, love,” she says, and walks out in a swish of purple fabric and faint perfume. Chadara thinks of Mira, and despite herself, smiles.

 

_12:10_

“I’m up next so I’ve got to hurry,” Mira says, her fingers gently closing around Chadara’s wrist. Her lips, sticky with makeup, brush Chadara’s ear. “But I wanted to say I’m sorry and I love you and I was being an ass.”

“Yes, you were.”

Mira smiles and kisses her firmly on the cheek, repeats “I love you” and has to hurry off. Chadara watches her go with a soppy moonstruck smile on her face. She can’t help the happy flutter of her heart whenever she hears those words; no one has _ever_ said them as frequently as Mira does.

She turns back to the mirror and sees a bright red splotch on her cheek from Mira’s lipstick. She goes to wipe it away and then pauses. It’s a good look, she thinks—just for a little bit. Chadara laughs at her own foolishness and tugs at the band holding her hair in place.

 

**Naevia**

_8:27_

“Filthy cunt,” a voice snarls, and it isn’t directed at her but even still Naevia’s heart jumps at the sound.

She hates that reaction—as though she were a deer, hearing the crack of a hunter’s gun—but she doesn’t think it will ever go away. Nor will the angry fire that surges through her veins, once her mind has caught up to her instincts.

Naevia pauses in the middle of the song and looks around, her dark eyes seeking the source of the voice. She finds it, stage left, and pure disdain slips down her spine. Tiberius. He is not worth the panic that his actions prompt. He has none of the sly, sadistic cunning that made Ashur dangerous; he is a foolish young boy, stumbling into everything in his path. He will not find Naevia easy to intimidate.

She swooped to Kore’s side and put a hand on her shoulder; the woman was shaking and pale, and the jagged scratches she had clawed into Tiberius’s face would be much less effective if she fainted now. Naevia he wonders if she could get away with attack the boy herself. Lord knows she owes him—but before she can convince herself, Barca has seized him and is giving him the bum’s rush.

Kore looks back at her, her eyes wide with anger and fear.

“You all right?” Naevia asks gently.

“I’m fine,” Kore says, nodding.

People are staring at her. The music has stopped—Castus is halfway out of his seat, concern in his face but knowing that there’s really nothing he can do—and the audience is treating this like some kind of show. Naevia squeezes her arm reassuringly and goes over to the piano.

“What happened?” Castus demands anxiously.

“Nothing—he grabbed her, that’s all. She made him pay. Listen, play me something upbeat, will you? She doesn’t need the attention.”

Castus watches worriedly as Kore is led offstage, and nods. He sits down and Naevia takes the center of the stage, along with Chadara and Belesa, who give her knowing looks and plaster fake smiles on their faces. The lights refocus on them, and as the music starts, the audience shifts in their seats and fix their eyes on Naevia.

It’s easy, really.

 

_10:14_

Naevia knows Chadara pretty well—well enough to know when she’s lying, at least. But hey, at the end of the day it’s none of her concern. Chadara can tell her what’s wrong and listen to her advice, or lie and keep it to herself. That’s her right.

Mira, on the other hand, is a completely different story. They’ve been at the same club for years. Naevia was the first to leave, fleeing Ashur and Lucretia and the hell of Capua, and Mira had followed soon after. They don’t keep secrets.

Naevia corners her in the dressing room. She smiles and gives a vague greeting, and then sits down in the chair next to Mira. It’s just time for most of the girls to have their first drink of the night, so the room is empty.

“You hear what happened with Kore?” she blurts out. As a conversation starter it’s not ideal, but it gets the job done. Mira swings her heavy black hair behind her with a scowl, and Naevia is hit with a smell of jasmine as  strong as her obvious loathing for Tiberius.

“Yeah. Believe me, I wish I’d been there to rip his fingers off—surprised _you_ didn’t.”

Naevia shrugs.

“Other things to worry about.”

“Mm,” Mira consents, dapping her lips with bright red lipstick. After a thought, she wipes it off. “I saw Kore earlier—she looks all right with everything. I thought…” She has to pause for a moment to smear a dark pink lipstick over her mouth instead. It doesn’t suit her as well, but Naevia doesn’t say anything. She understands—sometimes Mira just isn’t in a scarlet mood and there’s nothing to do about it. “I didn’t think she’d take it that well. From what I’ve heard, her place wasn’t like ours.”

Mira casts her a dark look, and Naevia nods. She slides down in the chair a little and props her feet up on the low makeup counter. Some of the girls don’t like her and make no secret of it as long as Laeta isn’t within earshot—as to _why_ , Naevia only has to look in the mirror—and so in front of most girls she would never drop the elegant and untouchable look. Better to be uppity than sloppy, she thinks.

But this is _Mira_. They’ve waded through the lakes of hellfire together. Naevia chuckles.

“What I wouldn’t give to have seen Lucretia’s face when you left after me—Batiatus’s too, but mostly hers.”

“Well, she didn’t hit _me_ with a bottle,” Mira says wryly.

Abruptly, Naevia stands and goes behind her. She gathers up Mira’s hair and starts to pile it up in this fancy bun that makes anyone look gorgeous—it’s saved for very special occasions. Mira hands her bobby pins in companionable silence.

“Fuck, but I’m glad you got out, hun,” she says emphatically after a while. “And got your happily ever after,” she smiles.

“We both got lucky,” Naevia says idly, putting the finishing touches on Mira’s hair. “Finding this place… me with Crixus, you with Chadara…” The corners of Mira’s mouth turn down, and Naevia bends swiftly to kiss her cheek. “It’ll work out, sweet, don’t worry,” she whispers.

Mira sighs. Naevia doesn’t feel particularly inclined to interrogate her right now.

“I hope.”

They stay there for a moment, looking at themselves in the mirror. Naevia remembers what it was like working at Batiatus’s place—no singing, smaller costumes, smaller tips, worse audiences—and she squeezes Mira’s arms, taking sympathy as well as giving.

So far, she thinks with a smile, hope has paid off.

 

_10:52_

It’s funny. For years and years, she had been taught that secrecy is safety. That hiding in the shadows is the best way to avoid misery. And yet… she loves the spotlight.

Her voice lowers to a soft croon and she tilts her head up so that the silvery light washes across her skin. The audience is quiet; most of them just drink and listen, rather than talk amongst themselves or jeer. She doesn’t really care if their thoughts are lewd, because the only sound she can hear is the sweet familiar melody of Castus’s piano and her voice in perfect harmony.

There is a pause in the lyrics and she casts her eyes modestly down. The light is usually too bright to see off the stage, but she can see Castus in the semi-darkness right beside the stage, and smiles to herself. She’s not as close to him as some of the other girls, but he’s astute—he knows how she works, and he plays the piano like no one’s business. Kore sits beside him, wrapped up in a shadowy purple shawl, her expression soft and contemplative.

Then the music swells again, and Naevia’s voice with it, and she’s lost in the whirl of the notes. For a long time, she doesn’t focus on anything but the melody, until it’s rudely punctuated by a sound she can’t immediately recognize—applause. Dazedly, she makes a quick bow, embarrassed almost at how far gone she was. It’s a burlesque show. She’s not going to pretend that any of the men are in here to hear her sing, or that it’s as good as being in some big opera house, but damn it’s nice to pretend.

Just as the spotlights dim for the beginning of the next song, Naevia looks out into the audience and, with a happy swooping feeling in her stomach, realizes that there is _one_ man here just to hear her sing. Crixus is sitting at a table, adoration shining from his eyes.

She almost misses her cue because she’s smiling too broadly, but she can’t help it. They don’t often see each other fully conscious lately—he’s been working at odd hours that clash with hers. But four years since they met, they’re still happier than they’ve ever been and it’s only a matter of time before they get engaged. She has a vision of their future. Their wedding, their children, their own place.

Right now the music soars and Naevia closes her eyes, listening to nothing but the notes in the air.

 

_11:39_

By some blessing of the schedule, she’s off until the grand finale. Naevia practically skips backstage, and her smile broadens as she finds Crixus standing awkwardly by the men’s dressing room. When he sees her, a grin appears on his face and he shifts his weight to reveal a bouquet of yellow daffodils in his hand.

“I hear there’s a real ritzy star at this place—” he begins, and she can tell he’s being entirely serious and maybe that’s what makes her pick up speed and jump into his arms. He spins her around a little bit, and her feathers get in his mouth when he laughs. “You were great, baby,” he says in his gruff voice.

“Thanks,” she beams, and gives him a peck on the cheek. “C’mon, there’s a room back here—”

She takes him further into the depths of the wings and they enter a small room with a couch.

“I’ll get us some drinks, yeah?” Crixus offers. “Gannicus owes me.”

He kisses the top of her hair and slips quietly out of the room. Naevia kicks off her shoes with a sigh and picks the bobby pins out of her hair. It’s short, and there’s not a _lot_ she can do with it, but she still tries, and her scalp is aching. Crixus comes back after a minute with two port glasses and a bottle of red wine, and together they recline on the couch. Naevia lets out a soft, satisfied hum as she leans against Crixus’s chest.

In one hand she holds the glass of wine, in the other Crixus’s hand, the fingers calloused and warm and steady. His thumb brushes back and forth over the back of her hand, and she thinks that even with the gropes and whistles of the audience, even with Crixus at a rough job that’s less than he deserves, even with Ashur and Tiberius haunting their memories, she’s never been this happy. Not even close, she thinks with a quirk of her lips.

“How was work?” she asks, sipping her wine. Usually they get to have dinner together, and if Crixus comes to visit her at work, it’s earlier in the evening, but she knows he had to work late tonight.

“Not bad,” he mumbles into her neck. “Tiring. I would have been here earlier, but I fell asleep for a while.”

“You should have stayed in bed,” she chastises.

“And miss this vision of loveliness? Fat chance,” he says, squeezing her around the middle.

The words “I love you” are on the tip of her tongue. They’ve said them a thousand times, but… this time she holds back. She doesn’t want to break the contentment that hangs in the air around them, as tangible as his arms around her.

 

**Mira**

_7:21_

“Evening,” Kore says cheerfully as she drops into the chair beside Mira’s and starts to apply her lipstick.

Mira waves distractedly. She’s trying to apply mascara, but she keeps thinking back to her argument with Chadara earlier that day, and her hands shake. She throws down the brush with a sigh.

“It’s going to be a rough night,” she predicts gloomily, and Kore clucks her tongue softly. She has a matronly aura about her, sometimes, that shouldn’t fit so well on a woman with her age.

“You’re a tough gal—I think you’ll make it. Don’t let Chadara catch you moping, now,” she says with a wink, before going off to put on her dress for the first dance. She misses Mira’s frown, which only deepens at her words. Yes, Chadara doesn’t like to see people mope, but she _does_ like to see people wallow in their own mess for a while, if she thinks they deserve it.

Kore’s place is taken by Belesa, who chatters incessantly as she applies her makeup—even her lipstick, which Mira didn’t realize was possible—and then Saxa, who did her best to fit two people in a rickety chair sized for a five-year-old. Mira turns to the chair on her other side, where Naevia sits. She smiles at Mira and asks a few friendly questions in her low, soothing voice, and then realizes that Mira doesn’t feel like talking, and they sit in companionable silence.

This is usually the dressing room that Chadara uses, too, but she doesn’t come in at all, and Mira pretends not to notice her absence. She thinks instead of the women around her, none of whom she knew three, four years ago, who have come from across the country or across an ocean or across town, who are strong and sexy and kind as hell. It helps, she thinks, to focus on how wonderful everyone else is. It distracts from how downright shitty she feels.

Still, she can’t shake the feeling that this is a significant night, maybe dangerous, maybe revolutionary.

 

_10:25_

Dancing with Saxa is… well, kind of like dancing with a hurricane, to be honest. There’s a reason Laeta makes sure no one has to do it more than once a shift, because Saxa isn’t much of a singer but she can dance like hell. Mira likes being her partner; no one can deny that it’s a rush.

Their backup pianist, Donar, pounds on the keys so quickly and firmly that she half expects the piano to crumble to pieces, and Mira lets her limbs take over. She and Saxa whirl, dive, grab each other’s arms, pull off half-lifts that betray Saxa’s ballet training (which she never talks about—it’s a great mystery), and make wild movements with their arms that could easily cause a black eye. Mira’s the only one so far who’s never really been injured dancing with Saxa, which is a point of pride for both of them.

She can see the sweat pouring down Saxa’s forehead, and is positive that her own cheeks are cherry-red. This is a new dance, more complicated than any they’ve ever done. Finally, Saxa grabs both her hands and they swing around in a feverish circle, only to release—and fall safely to the ground as the piano rises in a dramatic crescendo.

Mira sticks her pose for a moment, just waiting for her dizzy head to settle, and then she stumbles to her feet. She looks at Saxa, grinning ear to ear, and hardly has a moment to react before Saxa grabs her face and pulls her into a kiss.

When she pulls apart, the audience is whistling, Saxa is growling victoriously, and her ears are still pleasantly buzzing. Mira is breathless with laughter as she makes her bow.

_11:41_

When the rush of the stage fades, Mira finds herself thinking back on that last kiss with less amusement, and more worry, than she would have expected. Chadara was backstage, she knows, but Belesa had definitely seen it—and fuck, the last thing Mira wants is to start up drama among the other performers. She already knows she’s made the dressing room tense by fighting with Chadara, and Naevia’s support has meant the world, so she figures it’s best to clear anything up right away.

“You’re worried about that?” Belesa says curiously when Mira explains, and she blinks in surprise. “Oh honey—who _cares_?”

“You don’t mind? Not even a little?”

“Not a whit, doll. It’s a show, isn’t it? I mean hell, Saxa’s probably kissed half the girls in this place, and I’m not going to raise a fuss over every one of ’em.”

Mira hesitates, tapping her foot nervously.

“It would bother me,” she admits finally. “If Chadara were going around doing the same thing.”

“Well.” Belesa gives an eloquent shrug, as if to say ‘that’s your business.’ But then she pauses, and her full lips purse as she thinks. “No, I’ll say it—why? You live together, don’t you? It’s _you_ she goes home with.”

“It’s just… I mean, Belesa, you can imagine the kinds of clubs we came from. Both of us. There were times when we were nothing more than glorified whores.” Sometimes not even glorified. “Coming here, not having to do that shit, it was a blessing. A real blessing, I can’t even tell you. Without that, we wouldn’t be together, wouldn’t be _happy_. So when I—if I saw her doing that same shit, I would think that…”

“That your girl’s a whore,” Belesa says promptly.

Her words drops like a brick in the dressing room, and the chattering immediately quiets as the other dancers try to listen in on what is clearly prime gossip. Mira picks her jaw off the floor and shoots them a glare that makes most hastily return to their own conversations.

“ _No_!” she hisses.

“Then what?” Belesa asks, with the smug superiority of someone who has succeeded in getting a rise out of her target.

“I—I would think that she wasn’t happy,” Mira says in  half a whisper. She sinks down into one of the chairs and pinches the bridge of her nose. “That there’s something else she needs that I can’t give her, so she’s turning to other places… that she can’t talk to me and she doesn’t _want_ to, and that she doesn’t understand that she doesn’t _need_ to use her body this way, and…”

She sighs and waves her hand despondently.

“So really… you think that she’s you.”

Slowly, Mira lifts her head and looks Belesa in the eye. There’s something—uncomfortably true about that sentence.

“She’s not.”

“No, she’s not. Listen, doll, I can’t tell you how to love, you know? All I can tell you—besides the fact that I really, _really_ don’t give a fig how many times you kiss Saxa, because I’ll always kiss her more,” she says with a crooked smile. “—is that it might be worth asking yourself: if Chadara were to leave you, would you rather it be because she thinks she can be happi _er_ with someone else, or because she’s _unhappy_ with _you_?”

_1:21_

Mira leans against the wall outside the dressing room, waiting for Chadara. Her comfortable boots, which Chadara hates, are on her feet, and all her sparkly dresses are in her bag. Chadara is sweeping her hair over her shoulder when she exits the room. She smiles and kisses Mira on the lips.

“Ready to go home?”

“With you, always.”

Mira puts her arm around Chadara’s waist, tentatively, almost expecting a rebuff, but Chadara rests her hand briefly against Mira’s, holding her in place, and together they leave the club. Their apartment is only three blocks away. It’s a cool night, lit by the moon, and they tilt their heads up to breathe air free of smoke and alcohol and the million other scents that are impossible to ignore in a club.

When they’re a block away from home, Mira slows. It doesn’t seem fair for her to go back to their apartment, their home, the little crevice they’ve carved out of the world for themselves, without paying recompense for the vitriol she had spouted—god, twelve hours ago? She removes her hand from Chadara’s waist, and kisses her fingertips, and then her nose when Chadara looks over at her. Chadara giggles.

“What?”

“I love you. And sometimes… I know you so well that I forget we’re not the same person.”

“Thank God for that,” Chadara chuckles, and Mira grins.

“Yes. And I hold you to standards—no, I expect you to react the way I would, and that’s not fair. I don’t want you to change, I don’t want you to be me. I want you to be the woman I fell in love with.”

Chadara nods thoughtfully, the moonlight turning her hair silver.

“But—baby, I’m not _always_ going to be that person, you know? I’m going to change sometimes, because I want to. And sometimes, I’ll be the same person, but maybe you don’t know me as well as you think you do—maybe it will still surprise you. You know?”

“I know.”

“And… sometimes I’m going to be shit about telling you,” Chadara says apologetically, tilting her head to look at Mira, embarrassment on her face. “Nasir tells me all the time—I like to keep too much to myself.”

“So I’ll just have to poke and prod until I get my answers,” Mira teases, jabbing Chadara quickly in the side. Chadara shrieks with laughter and draws away, slapping at her hand.

She looks beautiful, and she looks happy, so Mira takes her face in both hand and kisses her in the middle of the street, not caring, not thinking, with no witnesses but the moon.

 

**Laeta**

_5:04_

She flicks the main light switch, and slowly the club is illuminated by a glow that falls on the dark wooden bar, the thick velvet curtains, the lacquered piano and the crisp white tablecloths with nothing short of magic. Laeta looks over it all fondly. In a few hours, once all the performers have arrived, the main lights will have to be turned off for spotlight checks and the like, but she savors these moments, when the club is empty and she can admire it not because it is bustling, successful, and full of beautiful women, but because it is _hers_.

Weaving her way through the square tables scattered throughout the hall, Laeta makes her way to her office. She merely glances at the schedule for tonight—it’s been rehearsed and reread a dozen times—and fetches her inventory list. She goes behind the bar to check for everything they need. This is somewhat hampered by the fact that all the bottles are purposely either mislabeled or not labeled at all, and she makes a mental note to give Gannicus a raise for keeping them all straight.

A half hour later, Spartacus arrives and greets her with a familiar wave.

“Evening.”

“Hi. How’s everything? How is Sura?”

“Big,” he answers with a grin that threatens to split his face. Laeta’s known him for years, and she’s certain that his wife is the only thing that prompts such joy. Perhaps that says something about Spartacus’s sense of humor, but it’s heartwarming, in its way. Laeta doubts her husband had been _that_ devoted to her. “Supposedly she’ll be holding on for another month, but she doesn’t believe it.”

Laeta smiles and wishes them good luck, and Spartacus goes to set up the chairs.

They work quickly, checking for props and costumes and alcohol, and in general making the place look presentable. When they’re done, just before they unlock the doors for any of the performers who like to show up early, they sit on the stage and look out around the room.

“You’ve done a damn fine job with this place,” Spartacus muses.

The sleeves of his shirt are pushed up, and he leans back as an expression of pride and contentment suffuses his face. Laeta hums her assent.

“Aren’t you going to say ‘I have a good partner’?” he teases.

“I have a great assistant,” Laeta says, and bumps her shoulder against his fondly.

 

_8:37_

The first thing she does is makes sure Kore has a sip of brandy, because Laeta’s mother always told her a stiff drink was the best thing for shock, and damned if it hasn’t proved useful. When Kore looks steady, Laeta sits down beside her and hesitantly curls an arm around her back. Her skin is hot, and she turns against Laeta’s body instinctively, seeking shelter even as her shoulder remained perfectly tall and squared. Kore’s a proud woman, everyone can tell, and the small act of shifting closer in her chair makes Laeta solemn. She clears her throat.

“What happened?” she murmurs.

“Tonight?” Kore asks, with a bitter twist to her mouth. She picks at the tassels on the bottom of her dress.

“I don’t need to know about anything else unless you want to tell,” Laeta says firmly. With her free hand, she reaches over and gently clasps Kore’s fingertips, and Kore looks up at her. Her eyes are wide, dark, and thoughtful. She shrugs and takes another tiny sip of brandy.

“I used to go with Marcus. Tiberius was angry at him one day, and—and it was easier to hurt me than to hurt his father. There was nothing Marcus could do… maybe nothing he wanted to do.” She clears her throat. “And Tiberius is a spoiled brat who hates to lose, so no wonder he followed me here.” She meets Laeta’s gaze, and the emotion that colors them the most is… embarrassment, pure and simple. “I don’t mean to cause trouble, Laeta, I’m sorry—”

Laeta waves her away.

“But I mean to cause Crassus trouble, and you bet your bottom dollar I _will_ , if he or his boy bother you again. You hear?”

“Thanks,” Kore grins.

“Don’t mention it, really. Would it help to take the night off?”

“No. The only thing that would _really_ help, I think, is seeing Tiberius’s head on a platter, but I think Barca’s scared him off for the night.”

“That’s what I like about you, Kore,” Laeta chuckles. “You’re sweet, but you’re a fighter.”

She pats the woman’s shoulder reassuringly, kisses her cheek, and then immediately stands and heads for the door so that Kore can’t see the blush that suffuses her entire face when she realizes what she’s done automatically, without thinking.

“Let me know if there’s anything else you need from me,” she calls, waving a hand distractedly over her shoulder as she leaves. Jesus, she could use a stiff drink herself.

                                 

_10:51_

Twice a week, or more, Laeta stumbles across Belesa and Saxa kissing passionately in a place they shouldn’t be. This week, she rounds a corner and finds them in the middle of a hallway, for God’s sake. Her eyes roll to the heavens, begging for assistance.

“ _Discretion_ , ladies.”

They don’t seem to realize that she’s talking to them, so she snaps her fingers three times, loudly, until they break apart. Belesa bites her lip in a contrite grin, while Saxa merely flips her hair, looking smug.

“You’re on next,” Laeta reminds her.

“I must change,” she nods, casting a sly look at her lover. Immediately, Belesa turns towards the dressing room with her.

“I’ll help,” she offers brightly.

“—Naevia, by joining her audience,” Laeta finishes, stepping forward and cupping Belesa’s bare shoulders in her hands.

She gives the woman a light push between her shoulder blades, in the direction of the main room, and the dancer walks away, giggling as she throws one look back at Saxa. She plays the coquette very well, considering how bold she is naturally, which is one of the things that makes her such a good dancer. Laeta has admired her every once in a while (she does have a fondness for dark hair), although she thinks Belesa would be more than a handful.

Saxa leans languidly against the doorframe until her lover disappears from view. Then she, too, departs—into the dressing room, this time.

“You are going to be the death of me,” Laeta calls, and a laugh floats into the hallway.

 

_11:48_

When Crassus storms into Praxagora, huffing and throwing his weight around and demanding to see Spartacus, Laeta just smiles. Spartacus’s name is well-connected to the club, of course—it’s far easier to have him deal with certain aspects of the business than to do it herself—but she would have thought Crassus better-informed. So she points him in Spartacus’s direction, and waits five minutes before joining them in her office.

What she finds amuses her; Spartacus sits at the desk, hands properly folded like a schoolboy’s, while Crassus looms over him like a great, intimidating storm cloud. Yet it is Spartacus’s face that looks perfectly serene, which Crassus’s slowly turns crimson.

“You are a reasonable man, Spartacus,” Crassus says in a politician’s voice, laced with anger. “I am sure you understand my frustration—”

“—with such a son? Of course I do, but you must understand that the duty of teaching him manners falls to you, not me. And in any case,” he adds as Crassus chokes on his rage. “It was not _my_ decision to eject him from the premises.”

“Whose was it? That of the beast you keep at the doors?”

Crassus sneers, and Laeta’s temper is sparked. The gall of this man—the sheer _arrogance_ it takes to unleash his monstrous son on the world, and then return to her club and insult her employees—was inconceivable. Surely he must be putting on an act. No one man can be so fucking obtuse.

Well, she thinks with a feline smile, this will only be more unpleasant for him if he is. She steps further into the room, so Crassus and Spartacus can both see her clearly. With a sway in her step, she walks over to the desk and leans against it, her palms flat against the mahogany wood. Spartacus stands courteously, and turns to pour her a drink. They’re going all out tonight, apparently, she thinks, and her smile turns crooked.

“Mine. Your boy was harassing my dancers, and he paid the consequences. And if I see his face around here again, he’ll pay ’em again.”

“Laeta.” Crassus looks her up and down, from the tips of her Ferragamos to the lapels of her suit. She knows that look well. It’s what keeps her in suits at work, even though she has about twenty dresses at home that look absolutely drop-dead gorgeous on her. “I’d forgotten, you keep yourself busy here since your husband’s death, don’t you?”

She tilts her head and nods.

“Keep myself busy, keep my girls busy. You know how it gets.”

He doesn’t. The profits at his club are down twenty percent from what they were a year ago, and he’s trying to balance the stress of that with a political campaign, neither of which he’s particularly good at. She knows that, and also that he’s turned to extortion and blackmail to keep up the money flow, because there isn’t a chance in hell he’ll make it into politics without greasing a few palms. Of course, this makes him a dangerous man to needle like this, but he picked the _wrong_ woman to antagonize.

“It seems you and your partner are doing well,” Crassus sniffs. “Forgive me, then, for saying that your experience with politics is not as proficient.”

“That’s true,” Laeta cedes. Spartacus puts a scotch on the rocks by her hand and she lifts it to her lips. Crassus’s beady eyes fixate on it, as if he’s won a point. “I’d never be able to supply alcohol to half the bars in the city, and then turn right around and inform on them for a profit. That takes real _skill_ , not to mention a very creative interpretation of honesty and honor—”

“I did not come here to be insulted!” Crassus snarls. His face is turning purple now, and she sincerely hopes he doesn’t have some kind of apoplectic fit in her office.

“What did you come here for, then?” she asks, rolling her eyes. “I’m _busy_ , Crassus.”

“For an apology. The way your people treated my son, a fine upstanding young man, is reprehensible.”

Unable to resist, Laeta looks over her shoulder at Spartacus, who is wearing the extremely pleasant face he only wears when he’s laughing at someone inside.

“I presume there is a threat to accompany that,” he says, resting his chin in his hand.

“I do not deal in threats,” Crassus lies through his teeth. “But if that is the kind of crudeness you people demand—my friend the police commissioner might be very interested in seeing the kind of poison you keep behind the counter. Not to mention the riff-raff that make up your employees and audience. Do you think, Laeta, that you can get away forever with hiring _those_ people forever?”

For the first time, icy fear touches Laeta’s heart. She doesn’t know exactly who he’s talking about—Naevia, Barca, Mira, Castus, Saxa, Chadara, Belesa—hell, half her staff is objectionable to the general public, in one way or another. But it doesn’t really matter, does it? Her steely gaze fixes on Crassus’s eyes and he actually takes a step back.

“Don’t think,” she says in a deadly soft voice. “That I’m going to stand by and listen to you insult my people, or that I’m going to sit back and let you drag their names through the mud. Don’t think that I’m helpless, and my people defenseless. Don’t think I don’t know what your son has done, what you have done, what is _still_ going on in that club you run, that I can’t provide witnesses and evidence and raise holy hell in the papers. And Crassus—don’t you _dare_ think you can use your power, your money, your son, your _whatever-the-hell-else_ , to get at Kore. Do you hear me?”

The blood drains from his face so quickly that he may has well have been stabbed.

“You know—” he stammers in a dry, powerless voice. “— _nothing_. That is—”

“I don’t give a single fuck what you think I know or don’t know. All I care about is that you’re going to turn around right now, and leave this club, and if you so much as look back over your shoulder at me or mine, then you’re going to regret it. You hear me?”

Crassus clears his throat, straightens his lapels, and makes as though he’s regaining his composure. The sneer is back on his face, and he addresses her in a clipped tone.

“You are clearly incapable of holding a rational discussion at this point. I will return later to address this issue again.”

But he doesn’t look back as he leaves the room, and Laeta would bet that he doesn’t even as he slams the door and strides towards the club’s exit. Spartacus laces his fingers, a thoughtful look on his face.

“Think it’s too late for me to get into politics?” he asks.

Laeta laughs weakly. She’s shaking, just a little bit, because it’s been a rough night and she _hates_ bluffing, and Spartacus stands. He wraps an arm around her waist and kisses her cheek, and she leans in gratefully.

“She must be some kind of woman, huh?” he says in a soft murmur. “I should get to know her better.”

Laeta thinks of the way the golden light plays on Kore’s hair, and the faint lines around the corners of her eyes that disappear when she smiles, and the gentle security offered by her fingers curled around Laeta’s. She smiles and takes a deep breath.

“Yeah, she is.”


End file.
